Cork Dork Chronicles

I was today years old when I learned this about wine...............

Have you ever wondered what people mean when they describe a wine as complex?  One of wine's most important aspects is a big contributor to this.  That is it's aroma! 

Turns out there are hundred of different aroma compounds found in that glass of Marquette you are drinking!  But when we are tasting a wine, what we can try to pick out are it's Primary, Secondary and Tertiary aromas.  This can clue a wine taster in to several aspects about the wine.

Primary Aromas are determined by the grape variety and are mostly associated with different types of fruit and flowers.  That dark cherry you smell from the Marquette is one my favorite smells in the Winery!

Secondary Aromas are said to tell us more about where the wine grapes were from or it's terroir and can also clue us in to some fermentation-related aspects of the wine like a buttery smell or mouth feel.  You might hear a good Burgundy lover wax poetically about the minerality of their Chardonnay.  This is largely attributed to the limestone in the soil of that region, although there is zero scientific evidence to back that up.  Just don't tell the French that!

Tertiary Aromas are the smells we pick up related to the amount of oxidation the wine was exposed to and how and for what length the wine was aged.  Some say they experience Tobacco, Baking Spices or Vanilla. Our Marquette picks up some of that oak and also some smokey notes due to it having been aged in lightly toasted American Oak Barrels for about 18 months.  Delicious!